April 3, 2017 11:53 am

This week we would like to introduce you to the world of Language, Borders and Identity, three terms that form the title of our new #MondayReading suggestion written by Dominic Watt and Carmen Llamas, both lecturers at the University of York.

This book might be of interest for those passionate about research in the fields of sociolinguistics and sociology of language. The text offers a wide variety of reflections around the ideas of regionalvs. local borders, political borders dividing monoglossic and heteroglossic territories, symbolic and linguistic borders, language policy and language planning. Authors coming from different backgrounds provide an insight into these topics through case studies and examples taking a multi-disciplinary approach, that includes sociolinguistics together with human geography, anthropology and social psychology.

“Language use and attitudes as stimuli for phonological change in border Uruguayan Spanish”, by Mark Waltermire

“Religion on the border: The effect of Utah English on English and Spanish use in the Mexican Mormon colonies”, by Wendy Baker-Smemoe and Breana Jones

“Borders within borders: Contexts of language use and local identity configuration in southern Galicia”, by Jaine Beswick

“Perceptual ideology across the Scottish/English border”, by Chris Montgomery

“Wales and Welsh: Boundedness and peripherality”, by Nikolas Coupland

“The political border and linguistic identities in Ireland: What can the linguistic landscape tell us?”, by Jeffrey L. Kallen

“Multilingual Luxembourg: Language and identity at the Romance/Germanic language border”, by Daniel Redinger and Carmen Llamas

“What counts as a linguistic border, for whom, and with what implications? Exploring Occitan and Francoprovençal in Rhône-Alpes, France”, by Michel Bert and James Costa

“Constructing national and international deaf identity: Perceived use of American Sign Language”, by Elizabeth S. Parks

“Borders, variation and identity: Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin (LADO)”, by Kim Wilson and Paul Foulkes

Language, Borders and Identity is a perfect reading for those rethinking the “borders of language” as well as “linguistic borders”, including sign language, and is also ideal for those readers willing to explore the tensions between essentialist and constructionistapproaches to identity. We invite you to find out more about it. Enjoy the reading!

Written by Doris Fernandes del Pozo– Journalist, Translator-Interpreter and Communication Trainee at the Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament. She is pursuing a PhD as part of the Communication and Contemporary Information Programme of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain).